Proper Scoundrel Read Online Free PDF Page B

wiggled his index finger as she had done with hers before burying it in his chin dimple. “May I claim a bit of exploration in return?”
     
    Jade’s heart and body skittered and tripped. “I don’t have a dimple.”
     
    “Must I explore a dimple? Are there rules?”
     
    She tried to speak but needed to clear her throat first. “There should be rules.”
     
    “Fine then,” he said. “We’ll invent them as we go.”
     

Chapter Four
     
    Marcus began to trace the air above Jade’s bodice, scalloping slowly around the line of buttons marching toward her waist, while hovering less than an inch above.
     
    Then he scalloped back up again to hover above a breast.
     
    Smaller and smaller became his circles in the air, closer and closer to the source of her tingling anticipation, until her nipple stood as if reaching.
     
    Jade gasped.
     
    Marcus regarded her then, his eyes bluer and deeper, waiting for her to stop him, she sensed, but she couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. She could only wait as anticipation thrummed in her centre.
     
    His touch, less than a stroke, came so fast, she must have blinked because she didn’t see it happen, but her body knew, and sparked, and arched an unconscious invitation for more, but Marcus was too much the gentleman to accept.
     
    Instead, he pulled her close, crushed her achy breasts against his coat, giving her a measure of relief. “I should not have,” he whispered, warming her ear, melting her. “You’re bad for me, my Lady Scandal, but I will not take advantage. Neither will I succumb to your allure, until I have been specifically, verbally, invited to do so. You have my word. I will never hurt you, Jade.”
     
    “You’re bad for me as well,” she said, heat infusing her. “Let me go. I have things to do.”
     
    He released her, giving her the freedom to escape to ponder the shocking interlude.
     
    Marcus went to splash cold water on his face, determined to avoid another intimate encounter with the siren, and then he went looking for Ivy and distraction. At Ivy’s invitation, since Jade would be away for dinner, Marcus decided to eschew the society of Jade’s charges for the easy fellowship in the Manor kitchen. Though the ladies may not all be afraid of him, they were downright closemouthed in his presence, and he needed to learn as much as possible about Jade and her grandmother, and their mutual aversion to the railroad.
     
    Ivy slapped Marcus on the back when he arrived. “Glad you decided to join us. Sometimes the hens can be noisy.”
     
    Marcus laughed. “Jade ever hear you call them that?”
     
    Ivy winked. “Never. I’d rather live.”
     
    Beecher chuckled and poured Marcus a glass of plum wine. Jade’s retainers, for all they were supposed to be men being shown their lowly places, lived well. Marcus knew the Attleboro servants did not drink wine with their dinner.
     
    Beecher introduced the cook.
     
    “They call me Winkin,” the jolly old man said. “Because when I come here, I cooked Winkinhurst Cakes and nothin’ more.”
     
    “You were not hired for your cooking skill, then?”
     
    “Nah, but I learned.”
     
    Marcus grinned. “This house is rife with fascinating stories.”
     
    Beecher gazed at the men around the table. “Between the lot of us, we’ve been smugglers, wreckers, excise men and tired old salts, like me. What else would you be expecting to find on the Sussex coast?”
     
    Marcus sipped his wine. “I suspect you’ve stories to tell, and I want to hear them, but at the moment, I’m wondering why something I said seemed to upset Lacey.” He regarded Ivy. “She’s different from the rest of Jade’s downtrodden. Is she the one you said you brought here?”
     
    Ivy nodded. “From Arundel, more or less disowned by her aristocratic family. Good woman, strong, but sad.”
     
    Marcus accepted a plate of scotch eggs, some form of meat pie, and a ladle of pease pudding. “Lacey turned snow white when I